Agora, Agoraeus. See Market.
Agrammatus. See Unlearned.
Agrarian Regulations. See Land.
Agreda, Maria de, abbess of the Franciscan convent of the Immaculate Conception of Agreda, in Aragon. She was born April 2d, 1602, of rich and pious parents. Her mother, influenced by some dream or supposed vision, conceived it to lie her duty to found a convent of the Immaculate Conception ; and, having induced her husband to consent to it, they began to build the new monastery on the site of their own house. Subsequently, the father assumed the Franciscan habit, as his two sons had done previously, and Maria, with her mother and younger sister, took the veil in the new monastery. She was elected su- perior, by dispensation, at twenty-five years of age. She believed herself commanded from heaven to write
the life of the Virgin, but seems to have resisted the impression for ten years, for it was not till 1637 that she commenced it. When it was finished she 1 mined it, by direction of her temporary confessor, who exer- cised, in so doing, a more sound discretion than her ordinary confessor, who directed her to write it again, which she did, and finished it in 1060. As soon as it appeared it was justly condemned by the censors in Spain, Portugal, Rome, and Germany, and by the Faculty of Theology at Paris (the Sorbonne), in 1696. The title of the book, which is written in Spanish, and is filled with the wildest extravagances and much that is immodest, is " The Mystical City of God" (Mistica Ciudad de Dios, Perpignan, 1690, 4 vols. Ant- werp, 1692, 3 vols, and oft. ; French translat. by Croi- zet, Marseilles, 1696, 3 vols.). Eusebius Amort, theolo- gian of Cardinal Lercari, declares that the book was inserted in the Index at Rome in 1710, but that sub- sequently, during the pontificate of Benedict XIII, there appeared a decree permitting it to be read. Nevertheless, he asserts that he saw in the hands of Nicolas Ridolphus, then the secretary of the con- gregation of the Index, another and later decree, an- nulling the first, and declaring that it had been sur- reptitiously obtained. "At first," says Amort, "I wondered why this latter decree of Benedict XIII had not been published ; but my surprise ceased when I found that the}' had already commenced the process of the beatification of the venerable Maria de Agreda !" See Amort, De licrelationibus, etc., Augsburg, 1744, and, on the other side, a long series of articles by Don Gueranger, Benedictine of Solesmes, in Unirers, 1859.
Agricola, Francis, canon and curate of Rodin- ges, and afterward of Sittarden, in the duchy of Ju» liers, celebrated for his erudition. He died in 1621, leaving the following works: 1. Libri quatuor Evt.n- gelicarum Demcnstrationum (Cologne, 1578) ; 2. Loci prazcipui S. Scrip, de Sacerdotii IiMitutione it Officio (Lugd. 1597).
Agricola, John (called Magister Islebivs), said to be the founder of the sect of Antinomians (q. v.) ; born April 20th, 1492, at Eisleben, in Upper Saxony. His real name was Scknitter or Schneider, which he Latinized, according to the custom of the time. He studied philosophy and theology at Wittenberg, where he was distinguished for his learning and virtue, and taught in the university for several years. At Eisle- ben he became distinguished as a preacher. In 1526 he was present at the diet of Spires, with the elect- or of Saxony and the count of Mansfeld ; he also subscribed the confession of Augsburg, although he subsequently differed from it in many things. In 1538 he began to preach " against the Law," and, for a time, Antinomianism appeared likely to spread ; but Luther opposed the new error with so much force that the sect was suppressed in its infancy ; and Agricola, at least in form, renounced his heresy (see Nitzsche, De Antinomismo Jo. Agricola;, Viteb. 1804). Having retired to Berlin, he became preacher to the elector of Brandenburg, in 1540. In 1537 he signed the Arti- cles of Smalcald, excepting, however, the additional article on the primacy of the pope. Together with Julius Phlugius (Pflug), bishop of Nuremberg, and Michael Helden, titular bishop of Sidon, he composed the celebrated Interim of Charles V. He endeavored, in vain, to appease the Adiaphoristic controversy (q. v.), and died at Berlin, September 22d, 1566. His works are : 1. Comment, in Evany. Lucas (Nurem. 1525 ) ;
2. Comment, in Ep. Pauli ad Colons. (Wittenb. 1527);
3. A Collection and Explication of thru hundred Ger- man Proverbs (Magdeburg, 1526. The be^t edition, Wittenberg, 1592, contains seven hundred and fifty proverbs) ; 4. Comment, in Ep. Pauli. ml Titum (Ha- guenan. 1530); 5. Refutation of Thomas Sfvncer's Ex- plication of Psalm xix; 6. Antinomia, with its Refuta- tion by Luther (Wittenb. 1538); 7. Autinomicie Theses;
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8. Historia Passionis et Mortis Christi (Strasb. 1543) ;
9. Formula Pueriles (Berlin, 15G1) ; 10. Epistola de Cagiiibtis Doctrince Eccl. (Wittenb. 1613) ; 11. The Lives of the Saints, in German (Cologne, 1(518). — Cor- des, Joh. Agricola's Schr. moglkhst verzekhnet (Alton. 1817) ; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. cent, xvi, § 3, part ii, ch. 25 ; Hook, Ecc. Biog. vol. i, s. v. ; Bretschneider, in the Theol. Stud, ii, 741. See Antinomianism.
Agriculture, the art or profession of cultivating the soil. See Farm ; Tillage.
I. History. — The antiquity of agriculture is indi- cated in the brief history of Cain and Abel, when it tells us that the former was a "tiller of the ground," and brought some of the fruits of his labor as an offer- ing to God (Gen. iv, 2, 3), and that part of the ultimate curse upon him was, " When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield to thee her strength" (iv, 12). Of the actual state of agriculture before the Del- uge we know nothing. See Antediluvians. What- ever knowledge was possessed by the Old World was doubtless transmitted to the New by Noah and his sons ; and that this knowledge was considerable is im- plied in the fact that one of the operations of Noah, when he "began to be a husbandman," was to plant a vineyard, and to make wine with the fruit (Gen. ix, 2). There are few agricultural notices belonging to the patriarchal period, but they suffice to show that the land of Canaan was in a state of cultivation, and that the inhabitants possessed what were at a later date the principal products of the soil in the same country. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that the modes of operation were then similar to those which we afterward find among the Jews in the same country, and concerning which our information is more exact. See Arabia.